"Socialism and Man in Cuba"Guevara wrote "Notes for the Study of Man and Socialism in Cuba" in the form of a letter to Carlos Quijano, editor of Marcha, an independent radical weekly published in Montevideo, Uruguay. It bore the dateline "Havana, 1965." In addition to appearing in Marcha, it was printed by Verde Olivo, the magazine of the Cuban armed forces. It is translated in full below.

Though belatedly, I am
completing these notes in the course of my trip through Africa, hoping
in this way to keep my promise. I would like to do so by dealing with
the theme set forth in the above title. I think it may be of interest
to Uruguayan readers.

A common argument from the
mouths of capitalist spokesmen, in the ideological struggle against socialism,
is that socialism, or the period of building socialism into which we have
entered, is characterized by the subordination of the individual to the
state. I will not try to refute this argument solely on theoretical grounds,
but I will try to establish the facts as they exist in Cuba and then add
comments of a general nature. Let me begin by sketching the history of
our revolutionary struggle before and after the taking of power:

As is well known, the exact
date on which the revolutionary struggle began - which would culminate
January 1st, 1959 - was the 26th of July, 1953. A group of men commanded
by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada barracks in Oriente Province on the
morning of that day. The attack was a failure; the failure became a disaster;
and the survivors ended up in prison, beginning the revolutionary struggle
again after they were freed by an amnesty.

In this stage, in which there
was only the germ of socialism, man was the basic factor. We put our trust
in him - individual, specific, with a first and last name - and the triumph
or failure of the mission entrusted to him depended on his capacity for
action.

Then came the stage of guerrilla
struggle. It developed in two distinct elements: the people, the still
sleeping mass which it was necessary to mobilize; and its vanguard, the
guerrillas, the motor force of the movement, the generator of revolutionary
consciousness and militant enthusiasm. It was this vanguard, this catalyzing
agent, which created the subjective conditions necessary for victory.

Here again, in the course
of the process of proletarianizing our thinking, in this revolution which
took place in our habits and our minds, the individual was the basic factor.
Every one of the fighters of the Sierra Maestra who reached an upper rank
in the revolutionary forces has a record of outstanding deeds to his credit.
They attained their rank on this basis. It was the first heroic period
and in it they contended for the heaviest responsibilities, for the greatest
dangers, with no other satisfaction than fulfilling a duty.

In our work of revolutionary
education we frequently return to this instructive theme. In the attitude
of our fighters could be glimpsed the man of the future.

On other occasions in our history
the act of total dedication to the revolutionary cause was repeated. During
the October crisis and in the days of Hurricane Flora we saw exceptional
deeds of valor and sacrifice performed by an entire people. Finding the
formula to perpetuate this heroic attitude in daily life is, from the
ideological standpoint, one of our fundamental tasks.

In January, 1959, the
Revolutionary Government was established with the participation of various
members of the treacherous bourgeoisie. The existence of the Rebel Army
as the basic factor of force constituted the guarantee of power.

Serious contradictions developed
subsequently. In the first instance, in February, 1959, these were resolved
when Fidel Castro assumed leadership of the government with the post of
Prime Minister. This stage culminated in July of the same year with the
resignation under mass pressure of President Urrutia.

There now appeared in the history
of the Cuban Revolution a force with well-defined characteristics which
would systematically reappear - the mass.

This many-faceted agency
is not, as is claimed, the sum of units of the self-same type, behaving
like a tame flock of sheep, and reduced, moreover, to that type by the
system imposed from above. It is true that it follows its leaders, basically
Fidel Castro, without hesitation; but the degree to which he won this
trust corresponds precisely to the degree that he interpreted the people's
desires and aspirations correctly, and to the degree that he made a sincere
effort to fulfill the promises he made.

The
mass participated in the agrarian reform and in the difficult task of
the administration of state enterprises; it went through the heroic experience
of Playa Giron; it was hardened in the battles against various bands of
bandits armed by the CIA; it lived through one of the most important decisions
of modern times during .the October crisis; and today it continues to
work for the building of socialism.

Viewed superficially,
it might appear that those who speak of the subordination of the individual
to the state are right. The mass carries out with matchless enthusiasm
and discipline the tasks set by the government, whether economic in character,
cultural, defensive, athletic, or whatever.

The initiative generally
comes from Fidel or from the Revolutionary High Command, and is explained
to the people who adopt it as theirs. In some cases the party and government
utilize a local experience which may be of general value to the people,
and follow the same procedure.

Nevertheless, the state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes
occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by a resulting
quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual, each of
the elements forming the whole of the masses. Work is so paralyzed that
insignificant quantities are produced. It is time to make a correction.
That is what happened in March, 1962, as a result of the sectarian policy
imposed on the party by Annal Escalante.

Clearly this mechanism is not
adequate for insuring a succession of judicious measures. A more structured
connection with the masses is needed and we must improve it in the course
of the next years. But as far as initiatives originating in the upper
strata of the government are concerned, we are presently utilizing the
almost intuitive method of sounding out general reactions to the great
problems we confront. In this Fidel
is a master, whose own special way of fusing himself with the people can
be appreciated only by seeing him in action. At the great public mass
meetings one can observe something like a counterpoint between two musical
melodies whose vibrations provoke still newer notes. Fidel and the mass
begin to vibrate together in a dialogue of growing intensity until they
reach the climax in an abrupt conclusion culminating in our cry of struggle
and victory.

The difficult thing
for someone not living the experience of the revolution to understand
is this close dialectical unity between the individual and the mass, in
which the mass, as an aggregate of individuals, is interconnected with
its leaders.

Some phenomena of this kind
can be seen under capitalism, when politicians capable of mobilizing popular
opinion appear, but these phenomena are no treally genuine social movements.
(If they were, it would not be entirely correct to call them capitalist.)
These movements only live as long as the persons who inspire them, or
until the harshness of capitalist society puts an end to the popular illusions
which made them possible.

Under capitalism man
is controlled by a pitiless code of laws which is usually beyond
his comprehension. The alienated human individual is tied to society
in its aggregate by an invisible umbilical cord - the law of value. It
is operative in all aspects of his life, shaping its course and destiny.

The laws of capitalism, blind and invisible to the majority, act upon
the individual without his thinking about it. He sees only the vastness
of a seemingly infinite horizon before him. That is how it is painted
by capitalist propagandists who purport to draw a lesson from the example
of Rockefeller - whether or not it is true - about the possibilities of
success.

The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller,
and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such
magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible
to make the people in general see this.

(A discussion
of how the workers in the imperialist countries are losing the spirit
of working-class internationalism due to a certain degree of complicity
in the exploitation of the dependent countries, and how this weakens the
combativity of the masses in the imperialist countries, would be appropriate
here; but that is a theme which goes beyond the aim of these notes.)

In any case the
road to success is pictured as one beset with perils but which, it would
seem, an individual with the proper qualities can overcome to attain the
goal. The reward is seen in the distance; the way is lonely. Further on
it is a route for wolves; one can succeed only at the cost of the failure
of others.

I would now like to try to
define the individual, the actor in this strange and moving drama of the
building of socialism, in his dual existence as a unique being and as
a member of society.

I think it makes the
most sense to recognize his quality of incompleteness, of being an unfinished
product. The sermons of the past have been transposed to the present in
the individual consciousness, and a continual labor is necessary to eradicate
them. The process is two-sided: On the one side, society acts through
direct and indirect education; on the other, the individual subjects himself
to a process of conscious self-education.

The new society being formed
has to compete fiercely with the past. The latter makes itself felt in
the consciousness in which the residue of an education systematically
oriented towards isolating the individual still weighs heavily, and also
through the very character of the transitional period in which the market
relationships of the past still persist. The commodity is the economic
cell of capitalist society; so long as it exists its effects will make
themselves felt in the organization of production and, consequently, in
consciousness.

Marx outlined the period of
transition as a period which results from the explosive transformation
of the capitalist system of a country destroyed by its own contradictions.
However in historical reality we have seen that some countries, which
were weak limbs of the tree of imperialism, were torn off first - a phenomenon
foreseen by Lenin.

In these countries capitalism
had developed to a degree sufficient to make its effects felt by the people
in one way or another; but, having exhausted all its possibilities, it
was not its internal contradictions which caused these systems to explode.
The struggle for liberation from a foreign oppressor, the misery caused
by external events like war whose consequences make the privileged classes
bear down more heavily on the oppressed, liberation movements aimed at
the overthrow of neo-colonial regimes - these are the usual factors in
this kind of explosion. Conscious action does the rest.

In these countries a
complete education for social labor has not yet taken place, and wealth
is far from being within the reach of the masses simply through the process
of appropriation. Underdevelopment on the one hand, and the inevitable
flight of capital on the other, make a rapid transition impossible without
sacrifices. There remains a long way to go in constructing the economic
base, and the temptation to follow the beaten track of material interest
as the moving lever of accelerated development is very great.

There is the danger that the
forest won't be seen for the trees. Following the will-o'-the-wisp method
of achieving socialism with the help of the dull instruments which link
us to capitalism (the commodity as the economic cell, profitability, individual
material interest as a lever, etc.) can lead into a blind alley.

Further, you get there after
having traveled a long distance in which there were many crossroads and
it is hard to figure out just where it was that you took the wrong turn.
The economic foundation which has been armed has already done its work
of undermining the development of consciousness. To build communism, you
must build new men as well as the new economic base.

Hence it is very important
to choose correctly the instrument for mobilizing the masses. Basically,
this instrument must be moral in character, without neglecting, however,
a correct utilization of the material stimulus - especially of a social
character.

As I have already said, in
moments of great peril it is easy to muster a powerful response to moral
stimuli; but for them to retain their effect requires the development
of a consciousness in which there is a new priority of values. Society
as a whole must be converted into a gigantic school.

In rough outline this phenomenon
is similar to the process by which capitalist consciousness was formed
in its initial epoch. Capitalism uses force but it also educates the people
to its system. Direct propaganda is carried out by those entrusted with
explaining the inevitability of class society, either through some theory
of divine origin or through a mechanical theory of natural selection.

This lulls the masses
since they see themselves as being oppressed by an evil against which
it is impossible to struggle. Immediately following comes hope of improvement
- and in this, capitalism differed from the preceding caste systems which
offered no possibilities for advancement.

For some people, the ideology
of the caste system will remain in effect: The reward for the obedient
after death is to be transported to some fabulous other-world where, in
accordance with the old belief, good people are rewarded. For other people
there is this innovation: The division of society is predestined, but
through work, initiative, etc., individuals can rise out of the class
to which they belong.

These two ideologies and the
myth of the self-made man have to be profoundly hypocritical: They consist
in self- interested demonstrations that the lie of the permanence of class
divisions is a truth.

In our case direct education acquires a much greater importance. The explanation
is convincing because it is true; no subterfuge is needed. It is carried
on by the state's educational apparatus as a function of general, technical
and ideological culture through such agencies as the Ministry of Education
and the party's informational apparatus.

Education takes hold
of the masses and the new attitude tends to become a habit; the masses
continue to absorb it and to influence those who have not yet educated
themselves. This is the indirect form of educating the masses, as powerful
as the other.

But the process is a conscious
one; the individual continually feels the impact of the new social power
and perceives that he does not entirely measure up to its standards. Under
the pressure of indirect education, he tries to adjust himself to a norm
which he feels is just and which his own lack of development had prevented
him from reaching theretofore. He educates himself.

In this period of the
building of socialism we can see the new man being born. His image is
not yet completely finished - it never could be - since the process goes
forward hand in hand with the development of new economic forms.

Leaving out of consideration
those whose lack of education makes them take the solitary road toward
satisfying their own personal ambitions, there are those, even within
this new panorama of a unified march forward, who have a tendency to remain
isolated from the masses accompanying them. But what is important is that
everyday men are continuing to acquire more consciousness of the need
for their incorporation into society and, at the same time, of their importance
as the movers of society.

They no longer
travel completely alone over trackless routes toward distant desires.
They follow their vanguard, consisting of the party, the advanced workers,
the advanced men who walk in unity with the masses and in close communion
with them. The vanguard has its eyes fixed on the future and its rewards,
but this is not seen as something personal. The reward is the new society
in which men will have attained new features: the society of communist
man.

The road is long and full of
difficulties. At times we wander from the path and must turn back; at
other times we go too fast and separate ourselves from the masses; on
occasions we go too slow and feel the hot breath of those treading on
our heels. In our zeal as revolutionists we try to move ahead as fast
as possible, clearing the way, but knowing we must draw our sustenance
from the mass and that it can advance more rapidly only if we inspire
it by our example.

The fact that there
remains a division into two main groups (excluding, of course, that minority
notparticipating for one reason or another in the building of socialism),
despite the importance given to moral stimuli, indicates the relative
lack of development of social consciousness.

The vanguard group is ideologically
more advanced tha the mass; the latter understands the new values, but
not sufficiently. While among the former there has been a qualitative
change which enables them to make sacrifices to carry out their function
as an advance guard, the latter go only half way and must be subjected
to stimuli and pressures of a certain intensity. That is the dictatorship
of the proletariat operating not only on the defeated class but also on
individuals of the victorious class.

All of this means that
for total success a series of mechanisms, of revolutionary institutions,
is needed. Fitted into the pattern of the multitudes marching towards
the future is the concept of aharmonious aggregate of channels, steps,
restraints, and smoothly working mechanisms which would facilitate that
advance by ensuring the efficient selection of those destined to march
in the vanguard which, itself, bestows rewards on those who fulfill their
duties, and punishments on those who attempt to obstruct the development
of the new society.

This instintutionalization
of the revolution has not yet been achieved. We are looking for something
which will permit a perfect identification between the government and
the community in its entirety, something appropriate to the special conditions
of the building of socialism, while avoiding to the maximum degree a mere
transplanting of the commonplaces of bourgeois democracy - like legislative
chambers - into the society in formation.

Some experiments aimed at the
gradual development of institutionalized forms of the revolution have
been made, but without undue haste. The greatest obstacle has been our
fear lest any appearance of formality might separate us from the masses
and from the individual, might make us lose sight of the ultimate and
most important revolutionary aspiration, which is to see man liberated
from his alienation.

Despite the lack of institutions,
which must be corrected gradually, the masses are now making history as
a conscious aggregate of individuals fighting for the same cause. Man
under socialism, despite his apparent standardization, is more complete;
despite the lack of perfect machinery for it, his opportunities for expressing
himself and making himself felt in the social organism are infinitely
greater. It is still necessary to strengthen his conscious participation,
individual and collective, in all the mechanisms of management and production,
and to link it to the idea of the need for technical and ideological education,
so that he sees how closely interdependent these processes are and how
their advancement is parallel. In this way he will reach total consciousness
of his social function, which is equivalent to his full realization as
a human being, once the chains of alienation are broken.

This will be translated concretely
into the regaining of his true nature through liberated labor, and the
expression of his proper human condition through culture and art.

In order for him to develop
in the first of the above categories, labor must acquire a new status.
Man dominated by commodity relationships will cease to exist, and a system
will be created which establishes a quota for the full fillment of his
social duty. The means of production belong to society, and the machine
will merely be the trench where duty is fulfilled.
Man will begin to see himself mirrored in his work and to realize his
full stature as a human being through the object created, through the
work accomplished. Work will no longer entail surrendering a part of his
being in the form of labor-power sold, which no longer belongs to him,
but will represent an emanation of himself reflecting his contribution
to the common life, the fulfillment of his social duty.
We are doing everything possible to give labor this new status of social
duty and to link it on the one side with the development of a technology
which will create the conditions for greater freedom, and on the other
side with voluntary work based on a Marxist appreciation of the fact that
man truly reaches a full human condition when he produces without being
driven by the physical need to sell his labor as a commodity.

Of course there are other factors
involved even when labor is voluntary: Man has not transformed all the
coercive factors around him into conditioned reflexes of a social character,
and he still produces under the pressures of his society. (Fidel calls
this moral compulsion.)

Man still needs to undergo
a complete spiritual rebirth in his attitude towards his work, freed from
the direct pressure of his social environment, though linked to it by
his new habits. That will be communism.

The
change in consciousness will not take place automatically, just as it
doesn't take place automatically in the economy. The alterations are slow
and are not harmonious; there are periods of acceleration, pauses and
even retrogressions.

Furthermore we must take into
account, as I pointed out before, that we are not dealing with a period
of pure transition, as Marx envisaged it in his Critique of the Gotha
Program, but rather with a new phase unforeseen by him: an initial
period of the transition to communism, or the construction of socialism.
It is taking place in the midst of violent class struggles and with elements
of capitalism within it which obscure a complete understanding of its
essence.

If we add to this the scholasticism
which has hindered the development of Marxist philosophy and impeded the
systematic development of the theory of the transition period, we must
agree that we are still in diapers and that it is necessary to devote
ourselves to investigating all the principal characteristics of this period
before elaborating an economic and political theory of greater scope.

The resulting theory will,
no doubt, put great stress on the two pillars of the construction of socialism:
the education of the new man and the development of technology. There
is much for us to do in regard to both, but delay is least excusable in
regard to the concepts of technology, since here it is not a question
of going forward blindly but of following over a long stretch of road
already opened up by the world's more advanced countries. This is why
Fidel pounds away with such insistence on the need for the technological
training of our people and especially of its vanguard.

In the field of ideas not involving
productive activities it is easier to distinguish the division between
material and spiritual necessity. For a long time man has been trying
to free himself from alienation through culture and art. While he dies
every day during the eight or more hours that he sells his labor, he comes
to life afterwards in his spiritual activities.

But this remedy bears the germs
of the same sickness; it is as a solitary individual that he seeks communion
with his environment. He defends his oppressed individuality through the
artistic medium and reacts to esthetic ideas as a unique being whose aspiration
is to remain untarnished.

All that he is doing, however,
is attempting to escape. The law of value is not simply a naked reflection
of productive relations: The monopoly capitalists - even while employing
purely empirical methods - weave around art a complicated web which converts
it into a willing tool. The superstructure of society ordains the type
of art in which the artist has to be educated. Rebels are subdued by its
machinery and only rare talents may create their own work. The rest become
shameless hacks or are crushed.

A school of artistic
"freedom" is created, but its values also have limits even if
they are imperceptible until we come into conflict with them - that is
to say, until the real problem of man and his alienation arises. Meaningless
anguish and vulgar amusement thus become convenient safety valves for
human anxiety. The idea of using art as a weapon of protest is combated.
If one plays by the rules, he gets all the honors - such honors as a monkey
might get for performing pirouettes. The condition that has been imposed
is that one cannot try to escape from the invisible cage.

When the revolution
took power there was an exodus of those who had been completely housebroken;
the rest - whether they were revolutionaries or not - saw a new road open
to them. Artistic inquiry experienced a new impulse. The paths, however,
had already been more or less laid out and the escapist concept hid itself
behind the word "freedom." This attitude was often found even
among the revolutionaries themselves, reflecting the bourgeois idealism
still in their consciousness.

In those countries which had
gone through a similar process they tried to combat such tendencies by
an exaggerated dogmatism. General culture was virtually tabooed, and it
was declared that the acme of cultural aspiration was the formally exact
representation of nature. This was later transformed into a mechanical
representation of the social reality they wanted to show: the ideal society
almost without conflicts or contradictions which they sought to create.

Socialism is young and has
made errors. Many times revolutionaries lack the knowledge and intellectual
courage needed to meet the task of developing the new man with methods
different from the conventional ones - and the conventional methods suffer
from the influences of the society which created them.

(Again we raise the theme of
the relationship between form and content.)

Disorientation is widespread,
and the problems of material construction preoccupy us. There are no artists
of great authority who at the same time have great revolutionary authority.
The men of the party must take this task to hand and seek attainment of
the main goal, the education of the people.

But then they sought simplification.
They sought an art that would be understood by everyone - the kind of
"art" functionaries understand. True artistic values were disregarded,
and the problem of general culture was reduced to taking some things from
the socialist present and some from the dead past (since dead, not dangerous).
Thus Socialist Realism arose upon the foundations of the art of the last
century.

But the realistic art of the
nineteenth century is also a class art, more purely capitalist perhaps
than this decadent art of the twentieth century which reveals the anguish
of alienated man. In the field of culture capitalism has given all that
it had to give, and nothing of it remains but the offensive stench of
a decaying corpse, today's decadence in art.

Why then should we try to find
the only valid prescription for art in the frozen forms of Socialist Realism?
We cannot counterpose the concept of Socialist Realism to that of freedom
because the latter does not yet exist and will not exist until the complete
development of the new society. Let us not attempt, from the pontifical
throne of realism- at-any-cost, to condemn all the art forms which have
evolved since the first half of the nineteenth century for we would then
fall into the Proudhonian mistake of returning to the past, of putting
a straitjacket on the artistic expression of the man who is being born
and is in the process of making himself.

What is needed is the development
of an ideological- cultural mechanism which permits both free inquiry
and the uprooting of the weeds which multiply so easily in the fertile
soil of state subsidies.

In our country we don't find
the error of mechanical realism, but rather its opposite, and that is
so because the need for the creation of a new man has not been understood,
a new man who would represent neither the ideas of the nineteenth century
nor those of our own decadent and morbid century.

What we must create is the
man of the twenty-first century, although this is still a subjective and
not a realized aspiration. It is precisely this man of the next century
who is one of the fundamental objectives of our work; and to the extent
that we achieve concrete successes on a theoretical plane - or, vice versa,
to the extent we draw theoretical conclusions of a broad character on
the basis of our concrete research - we shall have made an important contribution
to Marxism-Leninism, to the cause of humanity.Reaction against the man
of the nineteenth century has brought us a relapse into the decadence
of the twentieth century; it is not a fatal error, but we must overcome
it lest we open a breach for revisionism.

The great multitudes continue
to develop; the new ideas continue to attain their proper force within
society; the material possibilities for the full development of all members
of society make the task much more fruitful. The present is a time for
struggle; the future is ours.

To sum up, the fault
of our artists and intellectuals lies in their original sin: They are
not truly revolutionary. We can try to graft the elm tree so that it will
bear pears, but at the same time we must plant pear trees. New generations
will come who will be free of the original sin. The probabilities that
great artists will appear will be greater to the degree that the field
of culture and the possibilities for expression are broadened.

Our task is to prevent the
present generation, torm asunder by its conflicts, from becoming perverted
and from perverting new generations. We must not bring into being either
docile servants of official thought, or scholarship students who live
at the expense of the state - practicing "freedom." Already
there are revolutionaries coming who will sing the song of the new man
in the true voice of the people. This is a process which takes time.

In our society the youth and
the party play an important role.

The former is especially important
because it is the malleable clay from which the new man can be shaped
without any of the old faults. The youth is treated in accordance with
our aspirations. Its education steadily grows more full, and we are not
forgetting about its integration into the labor force from the beginning.
Our scholarship students do physical work during their vacations or along
with their studying. Work is a reward in some cases, a means of education
in others, but it is never a punishment. A new generation is being born.

The party is a vanguard organization.
The best workers are proposed by their fellow workers for admission into
it. It is a minority, but it has great authority because of the quality
of its cadres. Our aspiration is that the party will become a mass party,
but only when the masses have reached the level of the vanguard, that
is, when they are educated for communism.

Our work constantly aims at
this education. The party is the living example; its cadres should be
teachers of hard work and sacrifice. They should lead the masses by their
deeds to the completion of the revolutionary task which involves years
of hard struggle against the difficulties of construction, class enemies,
the sicknesses of the past, imperialism...

Now, I would like to explain
the role played by personality, by man as the individual leader of the
masses which make history. This has been our experience; it is not a prescription.

Fidel gave the revolution its
impulse in the first years, and also its leadership. He always strengthened
it; but there is a good group who are developing in the same way as the
outstanding leader, and there is a great mass which follows its leaders
because it has faith in them, and it has faith in them because they have
been able to interpret its desires.

This is not a matter of how
many pounds of meat one might be able to eat, nor of how many times a
year someone can go to the beach, nor how many ornaments from abroad you
might be able to buy with present salaries. What is really involved is
that the individual feels more complete, with much more internal richness
and much more responsibility.

The individual in our country
knows that the illustrious epoch in which it was determined that he live
is one of sacrifice; he is familiar with sacrifice. The first came to
know it in the Sierra Maestra and wherever else they fought; afterwards
all of Cuba came to know it. Cuba is the vanguard of the Americas and
must make sacrifices because it occupies the post of advance guard, because
it shows the road to full freedom to the masses of Latin America.

Within the country the leadership
has to carry out its vanguard role, and it must be said with all sincerity
that in a real revolution, to which one gives himself entirely and from
which he expects no material remuneration, the task of the revolutionary
vanguard is at one and the same time glorious and agonizing.

At the risk of seeming ridiculous,
let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of
love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this
quality. Perhaps it is one of the great dramas of the leader that he must
combine a passionate spirit with a cold intelligence and make painful
decisions without contracting a muscle. Our vanguard revolutionaries must
idealize this love of the people, the most sacred cause, and make it one
and indivisible. They cannot descend, with small doses of daily affection,
to the level where ordinary men put their love into practice.

The leaders of the revolution
have children just beginning to talk, who are not learning to call their
fathers by name; wives, from whom they have to be separated as part of
the general sacrifice of their lives to bring the revolution to its fulfillment;
the circle of their friends is limited strictly to the number of fellow
revolutionists. There is no life outside of the revolution

In these circumstances one
must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth
in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into
an isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love
of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that
serve as examples, as a moving force.

The revolutionary, the ideological
motor force of the revolution, is consumed by his uninterrupted activity
which can come to an end only with death until the building of socialism
on a world scale has been accomplished. If his revolutionary zeal is blunted
when the most urgent tasks are being accomplished on a local scale and
he forgets his proletarian internationalism, the revolution which he leads
will cease to be an inspiring force, and he will sink into a comfortable
lethargy which imperialism, our irreconcilable enemy, will utilize well.
Proletarian internation- alism is a duty, but it is also a revolutionary
necessity. So we educate our people.

Of course there are dangers
in the present situation, and not only that of dogmatism, not only that
of weakening the ties with the masses midway in the great task. There
is also the danger of weaknesses. If a man thinks that dedicating his
entire life to the revolution means that in return he should not have
such worries as that his son lacks certain things, or that his children's
shoes are worn out, or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is
entering into rationalizations which open his mind to infection by the
seeds of future corruption.

In our case we have maintained
that our children should have or should go without those things that the
children of the average man have or go without, and that our families
should understand this and strive to uphold this standard. The revolution
is made through man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit day by
day.

Thus we march on. At the head
ofthe immense column - we are neither afraid nor ashamed to say it - is
Fidel. After him come the best cadres of the party, and immediately behind
them, so close that we feel its tremendous force, comes the people in
its entirety, a solid mass of individualities moving toward a common goal,
individuals who have attained consciousness of what must be done, men
who fight to escape from the realm of necessity and to enter that of freedom.

This great throng becomes organized;
its clarity of program corresponds to its consciousness of the necessity
of organization. It is no longer a dispersed force, divisible into thousands
of fragments thrown into space like splinters from a hand grenade, trying
by any means to achieve some protection against an uncertain future, in
desperate struggle with their fellows.

We know that sacrifices lie
before us and that we must pay a price for the heroic act of being a vanguard
nation. We leaders know that we must pay a price for the right to say
that we are at the head of a people which is at the head of the Americas.
Each and every one of us must pay his exact quota of sacrifice, conscious
that he will get his reward in the satisfaction of fulfilling a duty,
conscious that he will advance with all toward the image of the new man
dimly visible on the horizon.

Let me attempt some conclusions:
We socialists are freer because we are more complete; we are more complete
because we are freer. The skeleton of our complete freedom is already
formed. The flesh and the clothing are lacking. We will create them. Our
freedom and its daily maintenance are paid for in blood and sacrifice.

Our sacrifice is conscious:
an installment payment on the freedom that we are building.

The road is long and in part
unknown. We understand our- limitations. We will create the man of the
twenty-first century - we, ourselves.

We will forge ourselves in
daily action, creating a new man with a new technology.

Individual personality plays
a role in mobilizing and leading the masses insofar as it embodies the
highest virtues and aspirations of the people and does not wander from
the path.

It is the vanguard group which
clears the way, the best among the good, the party.

The basic clay of our work
is the youth. We place our hope in them and prepare them to take the banner
from our hands.

If this inarticulate letter
clarifies anything it has accomplished the objective which motivated it.
I close with our greeting - which is as much of a ritual as a hand- shake
or an "Ave Maria Purissima" - Our Country or Death!

Ernesto 'Che' GuevaraLast message ever written by Che to Fidel Castro, from Bolivia, in answer to Fidel's offer for weapons, equipment, and all the men he
needed for the spreading of the revolution throughout South America. [submitted by Carlos Isoard Freyssinier]

José Antonio Echevarriá (1932-1957)
Elected president of Federation of University Students in 1954; central leader of Revolutionary Directorate; killed by government forces in events surrounding March 13, 1957, attack on Presidential Palace.